The Beowulf Reader: Basic Readings

This book gathers some of the most important studies from the past twenty-five years of scholarship on the greatest Old English literary work. The essays have been selected to represent the various approaches that have dominated recent Beowulf studies and to illustrate the evolution of Old English literary criticism. The volume will be useful both to students encountering the poem for the first time and to scholars who wish to have on their shelves a gathering of significant essays.